Growing the Wealth of the Poor - World Resources Institute

CAPACITYW O R L D R E S O U R C E S 2 0 0 8resources and make decisions within the group. They are humanscale,with trust as an important driver in their activities (Uphoff1992:3; Uphoff and Buck 2006:5).Local organizations operate across all sectors and vary widelydepending on culture and location. Some are institutions of localgovernment, while others are civil society groups or evenbusinesses. (See Table 2.1.) Local organizations also span aspectrum from formal and officially recognized by the governmentto highly informal, traditional, or organic organizations. In anyone rural setting there may be a large number of such organizationswith overlapping membership and intersecting functions. Inone study of four villages in India, researchers identified 38 differentlocal institutions, including the gram panchayat (official villagecouncil), labor and educational organizations, savings groups,youth and religious groups, and marketing groups such as dairycooperatives (USAID 1984:1–7; Marsh 2003:7).72TABLE 2.1 THE VARIETY OF LOCAL ORGANIZATIONSType of Local OrganizationLocal Governmentor Public InstitutionResource Management GroupSelf-Help GroupService Delivery, Advocacy,or Networking GroupExamplesVillage Councils; Councils of Elders;Public Schools; Local Health ClinicsForest User Groups; Grazing Societies;Watershed Committees; Irrigation Associations;Fishery Management Committees;Farmer AssociationsSavings Groups; Women’s SupportGroups, Youth ClubsNon-governmental Organizations; Unions;Church Groups; CooperativesLocal organizations have a variety of origins: some springfrom traditions within a community, while others are created bycommunity members in response to new social, economic, orenvironmental conditions. Donors and the government also createlocal groups to take on specific development tasks. In some cases,self-help groups and other local organizations have arisen inresponse to state failure and lack of government services. Somereceive significant support (money, training, resources, or labor)from outside groups, while others are completely self-sufficient(Uphoff 1992:3; Seymour 1994:479; Francis and Amuyunzu-Nyamongo 2005:18–20).Local groups have been involved with natural resources for aslong as these resources have been managed. Many traditional institutionsregulating access to natural resources revolved aroundcustomary authorities such as tribal leaders. For example, untilrecently the Borana people of southern Ethiopia used councils ofelders and clan leaders to administer carefully delineated rangelanddistricts on their communities’ behalf, specifying where and whento graze based on seasonal weather patterns (Uphoff and Buck2006:59–60). Today, even as many traditional institutions havedeclined, the number of local groups involved with fisheries, forests,pastures, and farms has increased and diversified as rural societyhas reorganized itself around new ownership patterns, centralgovernment structures, and economic realities. Some estimates putthe number of new groups related to resource use formed in thelast two decades in the hundreds of thousands (Pretty and Ward2001:214). One principal reason for this expansion has been thetrend toward government decentralization and the creation ofgreater political space for the devolution of resource rights to localgroups (Scherr et al. 2001:10). In Nepal alone the governmentreported the existence of 14,000 community forest user groups by2005, due to the enactment of the 1993 Forest Act, which set theframework for devolving management authority and harvestingrights to local groups (Pokharel et al. 2006:6).The Strengths of Local OrganizationsLocal organizations are central actors in rural development, aninsight confirmed by two decades of research and case studies.Their effectiveness stems from being embedded in the communitysocial order. Because of their intimate contact with village life theyare good at assessing needs and marshaling local resources toaccomplish their work. Their small size and relatively nonbureaucraticnature generally makes them highly adaptable to thechanging demands and uncertainty posed by rural life (Satterthwaite2005:3–7; Uphoff 1992:2–9; Marsh 2003:1–4; Uphoff andBuck 2006:1–10; Scherr et al. 2001:17–18).The fact that they are populated by people who know eachother means that local organizations offer opportunities forcollective action and mutual assistance that do not always occurat district, national, or international levels (Uphoff 1992:2–3). Forexample, in Nepal rotating credit associations called Dhikuri offerthe chance for members to tap an informal lending market.Members of the local Dhikuri contribute regularly to a loan fundthat each member in turn can draw upon on a revolving basis for